Orphans of Apollo - S1 E9
January 2022
From the ashes of forgotten space dreams, a new era of exploration begins.
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Previously: Larsson finally got the answers he had been waiting for, but just as they were beginning to make future plans things are turned upside down.
Ling sat, palms on her forehead, staring at the table. Isaac sat slouched beside her, looking at the ceiling and cursing to himself under his breath. Larsson slowly put the phone down on the table and pushed it gently back to Ling. She sat motionless without retrieving it.
“Ok. What could they find by going through your lab? I’m assuming you were discreet when conducting your work?”
Isaac dragged his gaze back down, as if not wanting to return to reality.
“If you’re asking, did we leave papers lying around describing how we were going to grow our own human genetically engineered embryos? No, of course we didn’t do that.”
“I thought we were so careful,” said Ling, her voice quivering.
“It’s not worth discussing now. What’s happened has happened. More importantly, what is the worst thing they could find?”
“We were sailing pretty close to the wind, in terms of ethics, that is. They could certainly terminate our research and kick us out of the university.”
“That’s not the end of the world now, though, is it?”
“No…but I guess there is…”
“Isaac, there can be no secrets now. For me to help you, you need to put all your cards on the table.”
“There is the situation with our funding to date. If they go back through the research we have done under false pretences, we could be charged with fraud. As soon as they suspect this, I guess the police will become involved. Then things are going to get tricky.”
Larsson glanced at his watch, then out the window. He turned back to them.
“We leave tonight then.”
Ling looked up from the table.
“There is nothing here for you now. The sooner we are gone, the better. I hope there is nothing you need from the lab?”
“No. Only our legitimate research is stored on the University network. The rest is on a virtual machine I have running with a cloud computing provider.”
“Good. I’ll get you to copy that over to one of my servers once we get moving. Now your papers?”
“I have my passport and everything I need in my room,” said Ling
“Mine too. We both live in the same student house.”
“What is the nearest international airport to here? Other than Newcastle?”
“Teesside, then maybe Carlisle? No, they don’t have customs there. Probably Edinburgh after that,” Isaac said.
The pub was filling up now with office workers in search of an after work drink.
“Come on, let’s move,” said Larsson.
Out on the street they walked slowly, aimlessly, Larsson talking rapidly on his phone. He was discussing airports, handling agents, customs.
“…yes, Ok. Whatever they think is going to be easier. Will they need fuel?… We should be able to make it without, shouldn’t we? That will speed things up, especially at that time.”
He pulled the phone away from his mouth slightly, but kept the earpiece firmly planted against his ear.
“Find out when the next train to Edinburgh is.”
Isaac immediately started searching on his phone. Larsson turned to Ling.
“Is there anyone at home in your house? Someone you can trust.”
“Yes, I think so. My friend Mei should be there by now.”
“Can you trust her?”
“With my life,” Ling said emphatically. “We grew up together in Beijing. I have known her since we were eleven years old. We came over to the UK together to study.”
“There’s a train to Edinburgh in an hour,” said Isaac, looking up from his phone.
“Ok. Yes…apparently there’s one in an hour…It can’t be that far from here, we should be able to make it. When do you think you guys can get moving…well tell them culture hour is over…yes Edinburgh.” He hung up the phone and slipped it back in his pocket.
“How far is it to the train station from here?”
“It’s not far. We could probably walk there in less that twenty minutes,” replied Isaac.
“Let’s move then. Which way?”
Isaac gestured back towards the iconic Tyne bridge and they started walking. Larsson remembered apparently the builders had based the design of the Sydney Harbour Bridge on this one. According to his acquaintance from the flight last night, anyway.
“Ask your friend Mei to get your passports and bring them to the train station. Do you think she can do that in less than an hour? And be discrete about it. Don’t tell her why. I know it’s hard.”
“Bottom drawer of my bedside table,” Isaac said without being asked.
Ling took out her phone and started talking in Chinese.
“We are going to meet my jet in Edinburgh and head straight for California. They could come here, but I think the faster we get out of this city, the better. They are not looking for you yet, but they could be soon, so the bigger the head start, the better.”
Ling’s conversation was getting more and more animated, and she was getting upset.
“Mei will do anything for her. They’re like sisters. I’m sure she’s just not happy about it.”
Isaac and Larsson walked in silence for another few minutes while Ling continued to talk, tears streaming down her face now. After another minute or so, she hung up.
“She’ll be there.”
They carried on in silence for a few more minutes, then Isaac asked, “What about your stuff back in your hotel and your passport?”
“Luckily, I have a habit of carrying my passport with me when I’m travelling by myself and I don’t have my assistant to keep track of things for me. I only have a few clothes there and my laptop. I’ll set it to wipe itself if it gets turned on and goes online. Plus, if I don’t put my password in within forty-eight hours, it will wipe its self anyway next time it’s switched on. Anyway, there’s not much stored locally on it.”
“That’s handy.”
Isaac glanced at his watch impatiently. There was still no sign of Mei.
“She will be here,” said Ling, who had somewhat regained her composure.
Behind them, the tracks screeched with the noise of an approaching train. They all turned. The train coasted into the station, decelerating slowly. Silent except for the cooling fans on its transformers and the gentle thuds as it crossed the joins in the tracks. It stopped expertly on its marks. The door to carriage C, where Larsson had booked their seats was right next to where they stood.
“There she is!” said Ling, standing on her tiptoes, arms as high as she could reach, waving frantically.
Mei scanned up and down the platform, finally catching sight of them. She darted over, weaving between the other people on the platform. Ling and Mei embraced, then started talking rapidly in Chinese. Mei took a brown envelope out of her shoulder bag and handed it to Ling. She looked at Larsson and Isaac, then back at Ling. Obviously trying to reconcile what Ling had told her on the phone with what she saw before her now.
“We have to go,” said Larsson.
Isaac took his phone out of his pocket, he took one last look at the screen and gave it to Mei. She looked at it and then back at Isaac, still cradling the phone in her hand. Isaac gently closed Mei’s fingers around the phone and pushed it into her coat pocket. Then he embraced her and kissed her on the cheek. “Thank you,” he whispered, barely managing to maintain his composure. Larsson bowed his head slightly and smiled in acknowledgement.
Isaac and Larsson boarded the train, leaving Mei and Ling on the platform. Isaac stood in the carriage's doorway while Larsson went to find the seats. Ling and Mei embraced on the platform, tears running down both their cheeks uncontrollably.
“Ling,” called Isaac.
Ling and Mei held each other tight until Ling finally disengaged herself, turned, and boarded the train without looking back. She walked straight past Isaac and into the carriage. Isaac followed her in tow. They sat at the table halfway down the carriage where Larsson was waiting. Luckily, the train was not busy, so the other seat was empty.
Mei had followed them along the platform and stood staring into the window, her cheeks still glistening from the tears running down them.
“You also gave her your phone?” said Larsson looking at Ling.
She nodded.
“And you both left them turned on?”
They both nodded.
The impromptu group of fugitives sat in silence for a minute or so before the train slowly began to move. Ling gave Mei a final little wave as she turned to watch the train leave the station.
Nobody felt compelled to speak. The train passed the marshalling yards on the outskirts of the city and started to accelerate rapidly. Larsson took out his phone and sent a message to Sara informing her they were on their way. He received an almost instantaneous response. Sara and the two pilots were in a taxi on the way to Stockholm airport.
Larsson looked at his watch 19:07. Flight time from Stockholm was probably two and a half hours, an hour longer than their train journey. By the time they got to the airport, he suspected the jet would have not long landed. Perfect, no hanging around.
They continued for another ten minutes or so before Larsson broke the silence.
“Alea iacta est.”
Ling looked quizzically at Larsson.
“The die is cast,” replied Isaac. “It’s Latin. Apparently, it’s what Julius Caesar said when he crossed the Rubicon River in Northern Italy with his army. There would be no going back.”
“Shēng mǐ zuò chéng shú fàn,” said Ling. “The raw rice is now cooked.”
“I like yours better Ling,” said Larsson a little despondently, “Julius Caesar was assassinated.”
If you know someone you think would enjoy “Orphans of Apollo” or any of the other writing in “Explorations” please share this publication with them.
I hope you enjoyed the latest episode of “Orphans of Apollo”. Issac and Ling are committed now, and Larsson has a key component required to achieve his dream. If they can make it back to FASS headquarters undetected.
This week I have been world building, which is pretty much the main reason I write science fiction. I love to imagine how things will be in the future, but under my control. So no meddling politicians - except if they add something to the story. As you might remember from earlier episodes, Larsson’s Foundation is remotely building a lunar base, which is the first step in his plans to colonise the solar system. Although this base has existed in the plotting for the story, it’s been pretty bare bones. Fleshing it out is something I really wanted to get round to doing but have put off because other parts of the story needed attention. So this week I indulged myself and did a lot of fun research into lunar ISRU (in situ resource utilisation) and the power architecture for the base. NASA has some great documentation on their Moon to Mars Architecture. It’s worth checking out if you enjoy reading about that sort of thing, which if you are reading this serial, I assume you probably do.
Consequently, as I spent quite a bit of time on research (plus the schools had a snow day) there will not be a behind-the-scenes episode this week. Most likely there will not be one next week either, as I have a very busy week coming up outside of writing. I have plenty more ideas for these, more than time to work on them. I hope to get back to putting some of these behind-the-scenes posts out in a few weeks’ time.
Have a good week.
Thanks for reading,
Alex